In dreams, the rain runs silver
by Song of Stillness
Summary: After the completion of her quest, Elspeth is lost in her own grief and sorrow and it is only in dreams that she finds healing...


**In dreams, the rain runs silver**

_Scenario: _After the completion of her quest, Elspeth is lost in her own grief and sorrow and it is only in dreams that she finds healing...

_Characters:_ Elspeth, Dameon

_Rating:_ T

_Category:_ Romance/Angst

_Author's Note:_ This is a piece I wrote when in a rather melancholy mood – after a strange and provocative dream I had. Dedicated mostly to Dameon/Elspeth fans. In the story Dameon has died as part of Elspeth's quest... Lots of dream-imagery and repressed desire... Enjoy :)

o0o

She sits underneath leafy foliage, wrapped in green evening shadows. The sky above her seems to reflect her inner turmoil in fossicking patterns and stormy streaks of cloud. It is warm, _stifling _warm but she can smell the oncoming rain and the rich, deep overturn of earth.

Numb.

She is numb to the bone... for that is what grief does to you; It pierces you - it tears great pieces from you, jagged pieces from which pour forth constellations and galaxies so you can no longer feel.

No longer be...

And now she is only half a person with a galaxy-shaped hole where her heart used to be.

But no matter what she does, she cannot hide behind her porcelain mask of coolness. He. _Him_. Her partner, her bond-mate forces her to feel...

Grassy fields turn to dark wooden floors and she is lost, trapped between bars of light.

"Damn you Elspeth, you cannot go on like this!"

She looks at him, blinking in the half-light, wondering dimly why some furious emotion is pushing at her heart. She notices his hair, prematurely grey at the temples, his eyes green and desperate in the light. She tries to turn her back on him but he turns her around, forcefully, strong hands on her shoulders.

"Rushton, I don't know what you're-"

"_This_..." And he grabs her hand... and for a moment she thinks he is going to tear it off, but he holds onto it with such a fierce, burning intensity, it makes her heart jolt. "This complacency, this coldness, this lack of _feeling_..." She just stares at him, her eyes vacant but her soul thrumming with a million different emotions. He cups her face in his hands.

"What can I do...? _Elspeth! _What can I - " And it is here that his voice breaks and the pain he has been masking bleeds through. She looks at him curiously, wondering at his tears.

_Was she the cause of them?_

She looks down. "Nothing..." And the whispered word seems to hang suspended in the air for a long moment before it disappears into the cracks and shadows of the floor. He drops his hands, his face deeply lined and shadowed.

_Nothing._

She wonders why it is that the ones that are left behind suffer the most.

She closes her eyes and rests her head on the dry grass, her hand crushed beneath her. There is a dull pain in her chest that aches and burns in turn and she wonders dimly, what it would feel like to remove herself away from the world for a moment and let her spirit loose in the oncoming storm...

A soft, moon-shaped crescent curls around her thoughts.

"_Elspeth Innle hurting/aching from a cut too deep to heal."_

She feels the coldness of a nose against her own and the hint of soft fur against her cheek. Maruman alone understands the hurt under the coldness, the numbness of her facade. She resists temptation to nestle into the warm fur, ghosts of memories, light and ephemeral floating by... of Jes, Jik... Dragon, Matthew, Dameon...

"Oh Maruman... Does this pain ever subside...?"

"_They were dear/close to your heart; therefore it is natural that you ache/mourn for them."_

"Perhaps I can visit them in dreams," she whispers, his fur ticklish against her lips.

"_Elspeth Innle should not follow dream path tonight..."_ And his one eye shines like reflected silver in water.

"Why?" she questions him, her mind too sleepy and pain-filled to care. Maruman's mind is strangely pensive.

"_Many strange things/ strange emotions/ Innle should not deal with such emotions until properly healed."_

She smiles, almost in amusement at her old friend's concern, but the clouds overhead are too heavy, her pain too heavy, the warmth too heavy, her eyelids too heavy...

Heavy.

Drifting, pale shades forming and blurring

Spinning,

Kaleidoscope of colours.

And she dreams...

Opening her eyes to bright sunlight. Faded strips of bark outline the morning sky. She steps as if on wings, the surroundings blurring around her. Above her, below her is blue and white and calming, healing green. She turns to face the mountains and they part like stone giants to let her through.

And there is Ariel's laughing handsome face, his pale hand curled in hers. The burning doors of Obernewtyn. Then Matthew appears, holding a limp Dragon in his arms.

"Elspeth," he whispers, tears in his eyes, "She... she... I couldn't..."

And she reaches out a hand to touch him, opens her mouth to say something, anything when her surroundings melt and dissolve.

A road appears at her feet and she walks it, twisting, turning, spiralling, until she meets a bear with sorrowful eyes. She holds onto his matted fur, clings onto him for dear life... but he is caught up by a wave and swept under.

She calls after him... his name slipping from her lips.

_Rushton..._

Diamand fragments spinning and caught up in time.

She feels the wind on her cheeks,

The capture of a scent,

The calling of a voice in the back of her mind...

Then she is standing between two columns of people, reaching out to touch her with feather-light fingers... Selmar, Cameo, Jes, Pavo, Jik... Matthew... She cries out and tries to reach out to them, but they smile sadly at her and disappear like mist before her eyes.

And then she's flying, above the world and comes to rest on a mountaintop, the land unravelling like a patch-work quilt below her, the stars, wild and countless above. She turns slightly, sensing a quiet presence behind her. Dameon.

He's standing there, just out of reach, his presence defining the place, opening up and breathing with his essence. Wild and unfettered, each pin-prick of light, each celestial body shining with the purity and radiance of his spirit shape. She longs to ask him many things, but at present she cannot even breathe.

She's trembling, but from fear or joy, she cannot tell. She doesn't dare turn in case he is an apparition that will melt away the moment she touches him.

"Dameon...?"

"_Elspeth..."_ and his voice is soft and beautifully reassuring. She closes her eyes and sighs, something inside her lifting. They are so close and yet not touching. She feels as if she's standing on the brink of an abyss, the shadows behind her and the world unravelled at her feet. But for some strange reason, she still cannot face him...

"Why am I here?"

"Perhaps, that is a question only you can answer yourself," he says mildly.

Another long moment and then,

"_I miss you..."_ and she can't breathe for the fear that a single movement will make him dissolve into nothing.

"And I you, Elspeth," and his voice is sad.

She watches, light-headed as the universe passes before her eyes; sunrise, sunset, moonrise, celestial lights passing by in rapid succession, the dawn at once pink and light and gold and then indigo black again.

"I... I think about you every day, you and the others and I...wish you were here with us -" She longs to turn and see his face but she is frightened of her own emotions.

"Dearest..." And she watches from the corner of her eye, as the silhouette of light draws closer. She feels the tips of his fingers reach out and touch her hand, warm and reassuring. "Even though this may be a dream; it is also infinitely more than that..."

A curious ache arises in her and she turns finally, her heart beating frantically to see him. And she is caught up in a wave of conflicting emotions; joy at seeing the familiar, dear face and white-blind eyes and yet tremendous guilt and sorrow... The way he looks down at her is intimate, as if he can see deep down into her very soul.

"Dameon..." His arms go about her, warm and comforting as she cries into his collar-bone.

She was running fast down a tunnel, water dripping into water, the flash of harsh, electrical light in her eyes, a wailing, keening sound in her mind. Matthew had only just cried out a moment before and Dameon... Dameon was standing illuminated in the tunnel's harsh light.

He shouldn't have been there, but he was...

And when she had asked why? Begged _Why_? Screamed why, he had only said with that disquiet honesty.

"_Is it not obvious dear one...?"_ And he had smiled bitterly, _"...that I have loved you from afar the first moment I met you? That I still love you that I always will, that I have always known that this was my destiny..."_

"_Dameon,"_ And she hears her voice as if from a great distance, _"please -"_ But she _knows_, she can feel it... he has already made his mind up.

The first set of explosions ring in her ears, swallow her up in darkness as she watches him walk steadily towards the light.

He was holding her hand... and she remembers the exact -

moment

he

let

go...

The dark, velvet night and the starry constellations bring her back to the present.

"Dameon... I..." And she's confused, angry. She's angry at herself, for not being able to speak her heart, for not being able to apologise.

"_Hush__, dear one_."

And he holds her close, his long fingers caressing her back. She stills for a moment, remembering those exact words and the sweetness of his lips against hers. When had that been? Before he walked into the tunnel? Before the light had imploded... before she... before she had...

_It was her fault... It was all her fault. _

She blinks furiously against the tears, but they come anyway, unbidden, and in this bizarre place of dreams, the rain starts... slow at first, gentle on their faces. She looks up at him through the fine, grey mist, her heart aching, water droplets clinging to his eyelashes and hair. On sudden impulse she draws his wrist to her mouth and kisses it fiercely.

"_Elspeth... "_ His voice is whispered and he leans towards her, his breath fanning her face, lips barely touching, his warmth dissolving through her and all around her in ripples and pools of light.

She arches up into him, aching for something that transcends the physical... but he doesn't kiss her - not like that last day in the tunnel. Instead he breathes her in, her presence, her _nearness_. He runs his fingers over her, seeing her, memorising her in the rain. And she mirrors him; the incline of an elbow, the curve of a jaw, as if they're invoking some strange ritualistic dance, at once desperate and yet gentle. The air, the light is suspended, their souls open and abandoned.

The rain pounds down around them. And her tears are the rain, the rain that runs over them, the rain that melts the trees,

that melts all barriers...

And she wonders why such uncanny emotions and desires manifest themselves in dreams...?

And why in dreams, the rain runs silver...

All she wants to do is be nearer, to feel again... to obliterate every sorrow and grief that threatens to consume her. Raw and aching she seeks his skin beneath the wet clothing, kisses the indent at his throat, drags her fingers through his hair. He grabs her hands. She fights him but he holds her firm.

"Elspeth... I am sorry... but I cannot - " And his voice is anguished, his breathing uneven. "If I could have you - even now, I would choose to have all of you..."

She looks at him and holds back the urge to slap him, to curse him for his impeccable morality, for pressing the real world into her romantic dreams of forgetfulness and atonement.

She fights his hands and tries to tear from his embrace but he holds her fast. She weeps then as memories of Rushton flood her, ambush her, threaten to tip her over. And she realises that he is right, as always. He is right. She is reeling with desire, longing and grief... and dimly, she realises that it's because Dameon's barrier is down.

_I am sorry Dameon._

And a moment in time, a pause, a breath of air, then a soft "I know," along with an emotion; something strong and clearly discernible; something, she realises with a pang that has _always_ been there.

_Love_.

And she wonders why it is that she hurts the ones she loves the most...

But, still he holds her as the universe passes by.

"_Do you wish to be healed?"_ he whispers at last. And the request is shy, hesitant and sad. His fingers clench against her shoulders. "I may not be able to give you everything - but I... I can give you this..."

She nods, letting go all inhibitions.

He leans in and touches his forehead to hers, letting all barriers go, letting healing in. And it _hurts_, like refining fire, their souls, like dazzling white points of light touch and merge into one another in painful intensity. And for the first time since the end of forever, she is cut open... and forced to _feel_ again through waves of powerful empathy. Healing pours through the galaxy-shaped cracks in her mind, stars and constellations swim in, mend-over, repair and renew themselves, cleansing, refining. She feels sorrow, and loss and pain and joy... and somehow it is amazing and all too much...

When it's over, she stands there shaking, stunned by such a boundless and involuntary act that broke all boundaries. She looks up at him, at the quiet tears on his cheeks, just looks at him and receives a world of emotions as the rain beats down on them. And in his opaque, unseeing eyes, she sees reflected, the faces of Matthew... of Domick... of Kella... of Jes and of many, many others... the ones she couldn't save...

Her mind turns to a scene years before where she is sitting - just sitting with Dameon, talking and laughing about random, inconsequential things. She nearly weeps from the innocence and nostalgia of it.

_If only one could turn back time... _

"Elspeth..." He touches her cheek gently, drawing her attention back to him. "Do not feel grief for what has passed. We cannot change our destinies, but we _can_ live boldly and without regret in the time that we are given."

And she hugs him impulsively, fiercely, _safe_ within the solid warmth of his body and she melts at his unconditional love, letting her worries flow out with the rain.

They have no place here...

Then she looks up into his endearing face, memorising him, engraving him in her mind so that she'll have a little piece of him to take back with her. This whole, unbroken, untainted Dameon that she let fall through the cracks of oblivion. How can she describe the gentle way in which he was always there for her, the way in which his presence was a driving force in her life... that intangible sweetness that was a part of her?

She holds onto his fingers and smiles through her tears, knowing that this is the last time she'll see him. And she watches as he dissolves fast with the coming light, disappearing in diamond fragments, light streaming through his hands, his hair, his smile and last of all his eyes.

Then he is gone.

The rain closes over her with finality, echoing over a thousand times in her ears, whispers of the lost and the departed... And then she finally opens her eyes to a velvet night, wet and _cold_ with leaves dripping rivulets of water down her back.

She shivers, confused, walking up the steps to Obernewtyn. Rushton looks up in surprise as she stands there drenched through. She blinks, disorientated, puddles of water forming at her feet.

_Had she fallen asleep outside...?_

"Elspeth love...?" he murmurs warily, "What were you doing outside in the rain?"

She looks at him, searchingly. Already, the dream is too foggy, too high and too sacred for reality.

_"Atoning..." _

The whisper barely passes her lips. Rushton looks up and catches her eyes, and something seems to pass between them. An understanding.

She sighs.

Rushton looks at her strangely, perceiving a change in her light-filled eyes, a myriad of thoughts flicker across his face; disbelief, joy and a deep thankfulness.

Elspeth spies Maruman curled up near the fire, a reproachful, knowing look in his one moon-bright eye. But a quiet part inside of her knows and accepts what has happened.

She shivers.

Some things, she realises, whether in dreams or reality, whether they make sense or not, are just for _you_, for you and your own personal journey and stay a part of you forever... And she feels a strange sense of healing, of completion, brought about by this strange never-worlds dream. And though it isn't perfect - life is _never_ perfect, she knows this, you strive for things to work, and you grieve and struggle... and bleed... and somewhere through the pain and beauty of the suffering... you pull through.

Peeling off her wet things, she goes to sit beside Rushton and rests her head beside his hand, spread like a star on the wooden desk, thankful for his strength and his unyielding resolve. Cocooned in warmth, she listens to the steady heart-beat of the rain as it runs silver over a battered landscape. And feeling strangely at peace, she closes her eyes to wait for the dawn.


End file.
